Return to Meaning – A Social Science with Something to Say. New Book by Mats Alvesson, Yiannis Gabriel and Roland Paulsen

Sounds like an interesting and relevant piece of work …

„The  explosion  of  published  outputs,  at  least
in  social  science,  creates  a  noisy,  cluttered
environment which makes meaningful research
difficult, as different voices compete to capture
the limelight even briefly.  Publishing comes to
be seen as a game of hits and misses, devoid
of intrinsic meaning and value, and of no wider
social uses whatsoever. Academics do research
in order to get published, not to say something
socially  meaningful.  This  is  what  we  view  as
the  rise  of  nonsense  in  academic  research,
which  represents  a  serious  social  problem.  It
undermines the very point of social science.
This  book  argues  that  we  are  currently
witnessing not merely a decline in the quality
of social science research, but the proliferation
of meaningless research, of no value to society,
and  modest  value  to  its  authors  –  apart  from
securing employment and promotion“

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